Happy birthday

Turning 26 is no big deal. I'm fact comedian Patton Oswalt says you're inky asked to celebrate every decade after turning 21.

I'm not sure I agree with that. I know birthdays shouldn't be a big deal when you're my age, but growing up I always felt like a princess on my birthday. I had decorations, a special star-studded birthday plate, spice cake and more. I even got cake for breakfast the rest of the week, so the fun just kept going.

So now I am not demanding much, but I am going to make myself a cake and I am going to relax and drink coffee on the porch. It's one day a year people don't mind when you celebrate yourself, and I will enjoy it.

No matter their age, I will always make as much of a deal over my husband and children's birthdays as I can. My mom even hid a present for me when she was here last month so I could find it today.

It's not about finding presents, but birthdays should make you feel loved. And you're never too old for that.

Sacrifice and temperature

This week's sermon was in being a good husband but it really was in successful marriage.

The pastor talked about how a husband is a thermostat and a wife a thermometer,  he sets the temp and she responds to it.

When people get upset with each other,  our first thought is to blame that other person, as I wrote about the other day. Before we got married, I read something that said we should look at how we are behaving because our spouse responds to that. If they are grouchy, maybe because you are. You respond to each other.

In the sermon, the pastor also talked about how we should sacrifice for each other, whether that be sleep or time or money. I know I need to get better at sacrificing sleep. I also thought how I need to read the Bible more and if a motivation of it being the right thing to do isn't working then a motivation of doing it for my family should. Reading the Bible will make me a better person and wife, so I should do it for my husband if for no other reason at this point.
Read bible as sacrifice for family

Thermostat and thermometer, when spouse not responding well, look at how you're acting instead of blaming them

Another's shoes

I sometimes have to stop and put myself in someone else's shoes.

Earlier this week, my neighbor dropped off a present at our back door. And by present, I mean a garbage bag of Novie's poop that she had found in her yard. I got a little frustrated at first that she felt she had to give us back these items, but then I realized if someone's dog were pooping in my yard I might not be so happy about it either.

Tonight, Nate went boating with a friend, and I wasn't invited. It wasn't that he specifically didn't invite me, but the friend invited Nate to a guy's night. I was a little sad to be left out, but then I thought how sometimes it's nice to have just a girls night, so why shouldn't they have a guy's night. I had gardening to do anyway.

Usually, our first reaction is of selfishness. How do we feel? If we run with that initial reaction, it could get us into trouble. Sometimes we have to just step back and think of others. How do they feel? Why did they do what they did? What if you were in their position?

It might help you feel angry a whole lot less if you just stop and think about someone other than yourself.

Try it!

In the movie "Open Range," one of the cowboys spends a lot of money for fancy cigars and chocolate.

Nate loves this scene, because the cowboy says you shouldn't go through life without trying a little bit of everything.

I agree that trying new things is important. I never liked to branch out when I was younger, but Nate has always encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and because I have some of my favorite foods and several new hobbies. I love that I am not afraid to do new stuff anymore.

I think people often regret when they get stuck in their lives. They want to be comfortable but also excited. You often have to be a little uncomfortable to have excitement though. It's scary to climb a cliff, to bungee jump or even to try sushi if you haven't before. But with that nervousness comes adrenaline, and when you're done there's a sense of accomplishment.

Next time the chance comes to try new things, take a chance and say yes. What's the worst that can happen? You don't like it? Big deal. You'll know for the future then!

"A Broken Kind of Beautiful" by Katie Ganshert

"After Sara's accident, so many well-intentioned people had offered her words of hope---that God would heal her, that she would see again---as if that was a given. It was the same hope people gave Marilyn all those years ago. Story upon story of women who had struggled through infertility and ended up with a child on the other side.

"'God is good. It'll happen,' they had told her.

"As if God's goodness depended on whether or not he answered prayers the way people wanted him to answer. The hard truth was that sometimes he didn't. He hasn't rescued Marilyn from her infertility, and he hadn't rescued Sara from her blindness. But that didn't negate his goodness. It just meant he had different plans."

I just finished "A Broken Kind of Beautiful" by Katie Ganshert. It was a great tale by a local author, and I was surprised by how smoothly it was written. I have found books by local authors often sound like someone trying to write, and it takes you out of the story. This was not like that.

It's the story of Ivy Clark, a New York model who lost her virginity at 14 and has tried to stay in control of life by using her good looks to control men. When she gets older, it doesn't work as well anymore and life gets complicated.

There's a couple of under stories though, one about a woman suffering from infertility and another about a woman suffering from recent blindness. It was the section above that really struck me. These women didn't get the answers they wanted from God, but they both dealt with their pain and looked for the good in life.

So often we assume God will answer our prayers how we want, and if not he has failed us. That's not true though. God knows what is best, whether it's what we want or not.

That doesn't mean we can't pray for what we want, but it does mean we should accept it if we don't get it.

Life doesn't always end up how we expect or want, but if our hearts are tied into God's, we can have faith that it's all for our good.

Honeybees!

At work today, we got honeybees for a new exhibit. It's indoors, and the bees have a tube that allows them to go outside collect pollen and come back to the hive.

It is fascinating! The little creatures are constantly buzzing around, walking from cell to cell in the honeycomb, nothing but work on their minds.

They were only put in the hive today, but already they flew out and would come back in, their little pollen packs filled with beautiful yellow stuff. It looked like each of them were wearing MC Hammer pants, puffy on their thighs and tight around the ankle.

Why do they do it? Because that's what they were created to do. The worker bees only live about six weeks, and their lives are just about collecting pollen. That's what they do. That's how God made them.

When people ask us why we serve God, it's just as simple of an answer. It's what we were created to do. We were all made in the image of God, created to bring him pleasure and to praise him. We've fallen short of our purpose, but it all comes back around to the right track when we simply serve him. It might look like a bunch of crazy buzzing around sometimes, but when we're doing what we're created to do, we're happy --- no matter how it looks.

Time motivation

I have to say that the sermon at church this morning was very convicting for me.

Continuing on with lessons in Ephesians, the pastor talked about how to live a high impact life. One of the ways to do that is to spend our limited amount of time wisely.

He said to have goals, or at least one goal. I thought about how my goal is to honor first God and then my husband. All my decisions and the way I spend time should bring my closer to God or my husband, or at least should not detract from those relationships.

My two biggest time suckers are sleep and TV. Honestly, I am prone to laziness and the Bible says as a door turns on its hinged so does a sluggard in his bed. Sounds a little like me.

I decided I need to focus on sleeping less and need to not watch TV until after dinner so I get what needs to be done done.

I got home and watched TV and took a nap. I have a ways to go...